麻豆约拍

In a series of personal essays, Richard Holloway considers the tensions between faith and doubt over the last 3000 years. Author and former Bishop of Edinburgh, Richard Holloway focuses on the Judeo-Christian tradition as he takes the listener from the birth of religious thinking, through the Old and New Testaments, to the developments in subsequent centuries and their influence on thinkers and writers, up to the present day.

In today's programme Richard Holloway focuses on three writers, each of whom wrote about their personal spiritual struggles. He begins with the 17th century poet and preacher John Donne, best known for his early love poems, but it's in his religious work that he grappled with the themes of faith, doubt and temptation. Richard Holloway talks to the former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion about Donne's internal doubts.

A generation later, John Bunyan, known universally for his religious allegory The Pilgrim's Progress, wrote about his profound feelings of guilt, doubt and melancholy.

Richard Holloway's third writer is the 19th century poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. Holloway talks to AN Wilson about Hopkins' belief that religion could make society more effective and compassionate, yet inside, he thought of himself as a failure as a priest, a teacher and a poet.

Producer: Olivia Landsberg
A Ladbroke Production for 麻豆约拍 Radio 4.